The Brilliance of Google

I think Google is brilliant in the same way Jason Calacanis is brilliant, the same way Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump are brilliant.

In the seo world where I live there are a lot of people who spend a lot of time wailing and gnashing their teeth because of the way Google runs it’s business, mostly because it impacts their own business. Sometimes seo bloggers go on a frenzy, like starved and ravenous dingos in an overstocked butchers shop. I understand the passion behind these blog posts as money is involved.

Take the recent Page Rank reaction, which I thought was a brilliant bit of work by Google and definitely makes them more attractive to their investors. They saw people using Page Rank to sell links, so they devalue Page Rank to screw the market. Brilliant stuff. Exactly what I would have done if I ran Google and yet some of my fellow seo chums do not think so.

When money is concerned it’s difficult to be objective. Google’s actions can shift a lot of dollars from one bunch of people’s pockets to another bunch of people’s pockets.

Is a bedroom blogger’s opinion as informed as a multi billion dollar company stacked to the rafters with phd. types? Probably not.

Can a gaggle of bedroom bloggers have an influence beyond their seo bubble? Probably not. A few may get quoted by old and crusty media outlets, but seriously, whose listening?

When the latest “lets moan about google fest”, started I couldn’t get Tony Soprano out of my head each time I thought of Google. Now I am not saying that Google has any resemblance to organised crime or even dis-organised crime. What I draw from the connection is Tony Soprano would say, “It’s just business” and that’s what Google, Calacanis, Murdoch, Trump are about. They are simply taking care of business, in a brilliant way.

I also think of a quote, but for the life of me I cannot find out who said it, but basically goes like this. “Gee, that restaurant is always busy, you can never get a seat. They’re bound to go bust if you can never get a seat.”

19 thoughts on “The Brilliance of Google”

Excellent post, despite my not wanting it to be true. I’ve been saying for a long while that people just don’t seem to realise that G is a profit-making company, and will therefore do what they have to do to better themselves.

If this impacts the bedroom webmasters, or even the corporate webmasters, it doesn’t matter. It’s their bottom line that matters.

Saying all that, I still shake my fists wildly at my monitors when things impact upon my company!

The quote you’re looking for may have been inspired by one from the great (and eminently quotable) Yogi Berra. When asked about a trendy St. Louis restaurant, he was reported to have said, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

There are some people out there who just want to vent. I tend to take that as a sign of weakness, but I also can relate to having an urge to vent now and then.

There are also people out there looking to capitalize on the topic. Andy Beard pulled it off “brilliantly” this go around. He used Sphinn to promote virtually every article that talked about the TBPR update, sustaining the buzz momentum for days – to a point where the name Andy Beard became synonymous with the TBPR update penalty, as Michael Gray became synonymous with “Google is not the government” philosophy. Anytime some writes about this update in the future, they will link to Andy Beard.

On one hand, that’s effective marketing. On the other, its a case where a marketer jeopardized his credibility by promoting propaganda. If measure of success boils down to subscribers, links, and traffic, Andy Beard succeeded. He has gained authority links from SEOmoz, SEJ, Linkspiel, SER, and countless other high-profile sites. But has his marketing strengthened his brand?

Halfdeck I agree, Andy and Michael are both meisters at tapping into a topic and using it to create buzz and links. That’s not really what I am talking about though.

Although you make an interesting statement about branding. When I read Michael banging on about Calacanis I see it as pantomime, (for Americans that would be vaudeville, roughly) I read it in the same way I would watch WWF. That’s in no way a negative, WWF makes a lot of money.

When Andy does his thing I know I am going to get an indepth look at the situation, even though I may not agree or even be interested, the way he taps into a certain mindset in the industry and recruits them as fans and followers is impressive.

As to branding, if you look at Andy’s monetisation strategy it’s more based on affiliate marketing, the sector responds to a certain level of “I can’t believe they did that”, marketing.

What I do is offer specific services for web owners, seo and marketers. So I totally want clients and potential clients to know my opinion. I cannot write linkbait for this blog that does not reflect what I think and how I do business.

Which is why I it’s wrong to call this purely linkbait, sure people may link to it and I would like that, but that is not it’s primary function.

Whilst I have benefited from a lot of links, I would actually prefer just to have those little green pixel’s back.

It might seem silly to many, but for what I potentially was looking to do with monetizing my blog, or for future startup plans, junk stats that can be gamed actually make a difference, even though I don’t actually game them.

I am effectively “Between A Rock And A Hard Place” as far as my decision.

Dammed by Google if I don’t remove or nofollow links on 9 posts, and losing faith in my conviction if not with my audience if I do.

Trusting your own judgement is actually quite important for everything in life.

I still don’t understand why everyone is complaining, they are simply lowering their pageranks to accommodate for future growth, as more links appear on the net you will need more to get a higher pagerank, else in a few years time we’ll all have PR10 sites.